The economic benefits that an airport can bring to an area range from employment opportunities, income generation, economic diversity, increasing mobility and tax generation, although these are seldom net additions to a national economy because of the trade diversion effects as well as the trade creation effects.

Siem Reap International Airport serves Siem Reap, a popular tourist destination due to nearby Angkor Wat. It is the second busiest airport in Cambodia after Phnom Penh International Airport.

Building on the new almost-$900 million airport terminal task in Siem Reap province will be 67 per cent complete by the end of next year, according to Angkor International Airport Investment (Cambodia) Co Ltd (AIAI) chairman Lu Wei. The airport will be able to handle 10 million passengers in 2030 and 20 million by 2050.

Lu made the remark during a second visit by Mao Havannall, the minister in charge of the Condition Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA), to inspect the project’s improvement on December 23.

The new airport has been built on a 750ha plot in Ta Yek commune, Sotr Nikum district east of Siem Reap town at a cost of $880 million. The project is being built in three phases.

AIAI will invest $500 million for the first and second phases, which will allow medium-sized and ranged passenger aircraft like the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 to land. Another $300 million will be allocated for the third phase.

In October 2017, the government reached an agreement with Chinese state-run Yunnan Investment Holdings Ltd to build the new airport to serve Siem Reap.

The agreement gave the firm and its construction and airport management subsidiaries an exclusive 55-year build, operate, transfer (BOT) concession on the new airport, replacing the current exclusive agreement with Cambodia Airports, a company majority-owned by France’s VINCI Group, which was set to expire in 2040.